Steve Jobs loves the Beatles.

Steve Jobs loves the Beatles. He often discusses them in speeches and says his company is founded on their principles of teamwork and balance. You know, keep people’s negative tendencies in check, find strengths and weaknesses and balance them with others on the team.

Steve was adopted. The nice couple waiting to adopt him decided they wanted a girl when he was born. So they declined. His adoptive parents received a phone call in the middle of the night saying, “We have this little boy, you want him?” and the Jobs said, "Sure!" So he was passed on, not once, by his unwed college student birth mother because she wanted him to have college graduate parents, but twice, when the gender thing was not a match.

When I think of Steve Jobs, I don’t think of my iPad, or my iPod, or the MacBook Air that I work on every day, and need to have to further my personal brand. I think of Toy Story, a movie in which he was the executive producer after giving Pixar a vision which would marry animation and technology and change movie-going forever. Somewhere in between Woody and Buzz, there is Steve Jobs. An American Cowboy. An astronaut, everything a baby boomer kid ever wanted to be. Hopeful, heroic, capable and creative. A kid who believed we were going to the moon.

People wonder if Apple will be the same, or as good, without Steve Jobs at the helm. Technology is a young man’s game. Apple has a deep bench and an even deeper commitment to his core brand values. Because when a human brand subsumes a corporate one there are too many eggs in one basket. Jobs understands this and has built a company that is mentally, but not emotionally ready for succession. He has been dutifully showcasing other team members since his health woes started. But he is The Muse. And his presence will always be felt at Cupertino.

Today we should all think about our businesses and the lessons of passion Steve Jobs has preached. We should ask ourselves to Think Different. We should blow up the status quo. And then we should think about what brand strength and execution mean to our future and where it can take us. In the words of Buzz Lightyear, “To Infinity and Beyond.” Thank you Steve Jobs.